Spring is in the air and so are the Crane Flies, also called “mosquito hawks” or “skeeter eaters”. These members of the Tipulidae family, with over 15,000 species worldwide, lack functional mouth parts as adults and only live for a matter of days. Males pursue the larger females and after a few sweet minutes/hours of copulation her fertilized eggs are deposited in wet soil or fresh water algal mats. Notice the hind pair of wings are reduced to little knobs on the end of a stalk which are used like a gyroscope to aid in flight.
